Le Rebelle et le Cygne
by PrimrosesInTheRain
Summary: (The Rebel and the Swan) A modern day dance AU one-shot in which Enjolras watches Eponine dance the role of the Swan Queen in Swan Lake, and of course, is struck to the bone in a moment of breathless delight. Plot bunny adopted from enjolrawr on Tumblr.


**Notes: **So, here's a little Enjonine one-shot—it's a modern day dancer AU, a plot bunny I adopted from the lovely enjolrawr on Tumblr. I watched _Black Swan _again like a week ago, and I was listening to the Swan Lake overture, so I guess you could say that it diffused into my writing—this story centers around that. So, I hope you enjoy, and please don't forget to review:)

* * *

_le rebelle et le cygne_

* * *

_For Tiasha, again, because everything should be dedicated to you for putting up with me and reading the random shit I write—all the awards:)_

* * *

Lincoln Center

New York City

"So, have you seen it before?"

Enjolras looks up at his date, obviously distracted. "Hm?"

"Swan Lake. Have you ever seen it?" She smiles at him—Natalie? Or was it Natasha?

Enjolras blinks dumbly in reply. "Swan...Lake?" He shakes his head quickly. "I'm sorry, what?"

She laughs indulgently. "You know, the ballet we're about to watch?" Her voice is the exact same tone of condescension that one would use with a kindergartener.

"Oh! Right, of course, um...yeah. I've seen it before...a couple times, actually." Enjolras goes back to examining his program and ignoring his date; he seems to be doing his best to try and memorize every single name listed—the principal dancers, the corps de ballet, the orchestra, the crew, the technicians—leaving his date rather miffed.

"Was it any good?" asks his date—Natalie, he's settled on Natalie—with a brilliantly white smile.

He makes a noncommittal noise, accompanied with a shrug, and they fall back into silence.

Natalie fidgets awkwardly and leafs through her program as she hunts for something to say to this strange, handsome man who sits beside her. "You know, I, um, I used to dance."

"Really...is that so," he replies uninterestedly, without looking up.

She sighs dejectedly, and flips the page of her program. A small white slip of paper falls out, and she picks it up—it's a last-minute casting change announcement. "Look. 'Due to an unfortunate injury, Miss Tatiana Sharapov, the usual prima ballerina, will be uable to play the part of the Swan Queen tonight,'" she reads aloud to Enjolras. Her expression turns into a sharp glare. "What?!" She continues to read on faster, her voice quickening with her anger. "'Instead, tonight Miss Éponine Jondrette, the understudy of Miss Sharapov, will be playing the role of the Swan Queen.'"

Finally, Enjolras looks up and displays a flicker of interest. "Really? Hm, that's good. Never really liked Sharapov." He goes back to not looking at her, staring now at the casting change, but he continues speaking, "Oh, perfect technique, of course, but there is such a thing as too _much _technique. She's almost...mechanical, in a way. A new principal dancer will be a nice change."

Natalie stares at him in horror, as though he's suddenly grown an extra forty heads. "Tati is my _best friend!_" she screeches. "When you asked to take me out, I suggested here so that we could support her!"

Enjolras swallows. "Did you now. Well." _Good job_, he thinks to himself. _Shut your stupid mouth_.

Natalie sighs, but then seems to make up her mind about something. She takes his arm, and with a dazzling Colgate-white smile, presses herself into his side. "Hey...listen. It's obvious that you don't want to be here, and Tati isn't performing tonight, so...how about we just go back to my place?" She throws in a wink for good measure.

Enjolras snatches his arm away from her and recoils, and this time it's his turn to stare in horror. "Um, I'm sorry, but I...uh, I think you may have gotten the wrong idea...I mean, I'm really not looking to...be with anyone right now."

She blinks a few times. "Excuse me..._what?_"

"I know this is going to sound horrible, but...I asked you out because our parents know each other. I mean, my mother set this up—she was practically begging me to take you out." Enjolras winces, because it sounds even worse out loud. "Mom...she has this sort of obsession with getting me with a nice girl. And by nice, she means rich." Natalie looks hurt by this confession, and Enjolras feels the need to redeem himself. "God, I'm really sorry, I swear I thought you knew..."

"Knew what? That this wasn't a real date?" Natalie snaps. "You could've made that a bit more clear, you know. I had no idea, okay? I thought—I thought you _actually_ liked me, and you wanted to go on a date with me!"

Enjolras keeps apologizing profusely, and says, "If it's any comfort, you're very beautiful, Natalie."

Natalie stares at him. "No. Oh my god, no." He wonders, slightly frantically, what he could've said wrong, when she continues, "My name is _Jeanette!_" She stands up, and slings her purse over her shoulder. "I'm getting out of here," Jeanette says, and walks out of the theater, leaving Enjolras alone.

_ Dammit_, he thinks. His mother isn't going to be happy about this. But before he can dwell on it too long and make himself feel worse, the lights dim and Swan Lake begins.

* * *

The ballet begins with the overture, in which Odette, a beautiful young maiden, is transformed into a swan by the evil sorcerer Rothbart, a spell which can only be broken by true love. When Éponine Jondrette, the new understudy enters the stage, Enjolras is struck by how similar she looks to Tatiana Sharapov—the same dark hair, lithe dancer's body—especially since they wear the same costume.

But when she dances, the difference is obvious. Sharapov held her body perfectly, almost stiffly—every arabesque, every grand jeté, even every wisp of hair held perfectly in place in a tight bun. But what Sharapov had always lacked was emotion—the passion that makes any good thing in this world great.

This new Jondrette girl—it is obvious why she is the understudy and not the principal dancer, because neither her ability nor her technique can compete with Sharapov's. As she dances the transformation scene with Rothbart, she makes a few missteps, and is offbeat for a few moments—Enjolras can tell that she hasn't practiced much with the man dancing Rothbart; she doesn't yet trust his arms and when he lifts her in the air, she is slightly unsteady and the audience holds its breath to see if she will fall.

She doesn't.

No, she isn't quite as good as Sharapov. But what makes her better, though, is that very passion that Sharapov was missing. As Éponine Jondrette dances, her every move is full of spirit (not always the best thing for a ballerina), but Enjolras does not care. She dances gracefully, as is required of a ballerina, but there is the slightest hint of rebellion—he's not quite sure where, but it's there. Perhaps in the crook of her hand, the way she holds it, or in the way she leaps slightly higher than necessary. Or maybe even in the few hairs that have escaped from her bun, and now curl around her face.

When Éponine undergoes the transformation—now dressed in the white tutu, bodice, and feathered headpiece of the swan, Enjolras is fascinated by how well her personal style of dancing fits with the character of a bird. She embodies a nervously flitting swan perfectly, as she dances en pointe, and it seems that as she continues to dance, she warms up, until her dancing is almost flawless. The mistakes that accompanied her performance as Odette are almost completely gone when she dances as the swan, but the rebellion is still there.

Enjolras sits impatiently through the first act, awaiting Éponine's return to the stage. At last, it is time for the second act, when the prince, Siegfried, goes swan-hunting, glimpses the Swan Queen's nighttime transformation back into Odette with a swell of music, and falls madly in love with her (hopefully to break Rothbart's evil spell). When Éponine and Siegfried begin the dance where he tries to catch her, Enjolras is once more inexplicably drawn to her. It seems to be something about the way she is enjoying the chase, enjoying herself as she swoops beneath the prince's arm with a slight smile and out of his grasp in her bird form.

When Éponine exits and the_ valse des cygnes _begins, Enjolras actually finds himself bored. When he had been much younger and his mother forced him to go see the ballet, the dancing of the corps de ballethad always been his favorite part (although he never would have admitted it). But now, he does not enjoy it at all, as he is waiting only for Éponine to reappear. She enters at last, and once again Enjolras stares at her, unable to tear his eyes away.

The entire ballet seems to have become, to him, an endless act of waiting for Éponine to come onstage, and when the third act begins, he finds himself looking forward to her performance as Odile, the evil daughter of Rothbart, who seduces the prince in the guise of Odette, and tricks him into confessing his love for her—thus permanently sealing the curse.

At last Odile's Coda begins, in which Éponine as Odette's alter ego (now in a black costume) will perform the extraordinarily difficult thirty-two fouettés en tournant. She executes them perfectly, whirling up en pointe, then back to flat foot, then quickly back up, over and over until she has spun thirty-two times. Enjolras counts them all, and briefly, at around twenty-four _fouettés_, she slips out of character and spins with a huge smile on her face. She completes the thirty-two to thunderous applause from the audience.

The curtain rises on the final act, with Éponine now back in white swan form. There are several different possible endings to swan lake, and Enjolras finds himself unable to recall exactly which ending this version will be using. The endings could be anywhere between a fairy tale, with a happily ever after, and a greek tragedy, where the main characters all die.

He finds out, when with a small smile, Éponine vanishes entirely into the character and jumps off the setpiece cliff.

The curtain falls.

* * *

The curtain call.

First the corps de ballet, and then Rothbart, the Prince Siegfried. at last the Swan Queen herself appears, and she is met with thunderous applause—none louder than Enjolras's. "_Brava!_" he shouts, "_Brava_, Éponine!"

After the curtain call ends, Enjolras finds himself running backstage. He meets a member of the corps first, as she exits in sweats, with her dance bag slung over her shoulder. "Excuse me, could you tell me where i could find Miss Jondrette?" he asks.

"'Ponine?" answers the girl. "Her dressing room is down the hall, take a right." She waves in the general direction, and Enjolras thanks her and rushes off.

The various members of the corps stare as enjolras runs by. One girl snickers, "They're always in such a hurry to meet the beautiful Swan Queen, and make complete idiots of themselves, of course."

Another one looks wistfully at him. "Yeah, but that one's pretty good-looking." She sighs. "The prima ballerina always gets all the men. Why can't one man, just once, be attracted to me?"

"Because we're in the lowly corps, of course," replies the first girl.

Enjolras ignores the whispers, and quickly arrives at Éponine's dressing room; the door is closed. He knocks quickly, sharply, and to be honest, a bit nervously.

The door opens, and she stands there, right before him, the girl he's spent all night staring at in wonder. She's no longer in her costume or make-up, and up close there are dark circles ringing her eyes, but in his mind she still retains all the grace and beauty she held on the stage. He gulps nervously. "Um, hello."

Éponine sighs. "And...nope." She moves to close the door on him, but he wedges his foot in. "Persistent, are we?" She raises her eyebrows.

"I, um," he clears his throat. "I just wanted to say how incredible your performance was." Enjolras mentally groans and slaps himself. _You sound like a complete idiot_, he admonishes himself.

"So you're one of the admirers. Tati told me that you guys are always hanging around the prima ballerina." She opens the door a bit wider. "She _also _told me how annoying you guys are."

"I—if I'm bothering you, I'll go, don't worry. I just wanted to tell you how great of a dancer you are." He winces—he still sounds stupid.

Éponine smiles a bit at him, this golden-haired man with a jaw of glass, who rather resembles a model but lacks any sort of confidence at all. " So you're a gentleman. What's your name?"

"I—Enjolras."

"Well, Mr. Enjolras. First, we're going to assume that's a last name, because if it's not, I don't know what your parents were thinking." Éponine laughs, and Enjolras finds that he very much likes the sound of her laughter. Perhaps even more than he enjoys watching her dance. "Mr. Enjolras, I guess you're not quite as bad as Tati made _her _admirers sound. Plus you're very flattering." She opens the door all the way open with a smile that has Enjolras completely ensnared. "Do you want to come in? You can tell me more about how wonderful I am." She winks.

Enjolras stares at her, open-mouthed. Silence. Then, finally, he chokes out, "I think I love you, actually."

She rolls her eyes, but not unkindly. Pulling him into her dressing room, she says, "Oh, honey. Your IQ seems to have gone down to about forty." She laughs. "Good thing you're cute."

* * *

**Notes: **I hope you liked this one-shot:) I know next to nothing about ballet, so please forgive any mistakes that I made here. Please review!:)


End file.
